Pretty Is As Pretty Does
by avelinette
Summary: Campers have believed the gods to be mostly good all their lives. Char and Zee believe the gods to be bumbling idiots. 'Monsters' are tired of Tartarus. Mortals have no idea what's happening. Our world is on the brink of war . . . and that means that sides are going to be chosen. T because little kids might have a hard time understanding the mythology analysis or something.
1. Chapter 1

**(a/n) This is the first time I've decided to make a story like this. And it is a first for many different reasons. Here is a short list:  
The gods are good-but evil at the same time. I had to incorporate both stories into deciding the characters' tone towards the gods.  
A person thought to be evil is a main character.  
The gods (well, two of them) are completely and utterly wrong.  
Even the short list could go on and on, but because I am on a flight to Portugal (7 HOURS!) I'll leave it at that. **

**Thank you SO much to anime-lover10, Emo Hippie YTF, happy-go-lucky writer, Happy8D, HappyAce88, ' .it.i' , ImmortalSolace, Megan5162, Melt your Heart, Myterymew, senecka, ShardX, ShoshonaTheRose, The Girl of the Moon, valkyriecain2110, wamakima5004, wess1010, and xXxrouxXx for sticking with me to the end on my SoN story. I love you all so much . . . in a non-creepy way!**

Zachary Miller stared at the paper in front of him. He didn't care if Galileo was an astronomer or a physicist. He didn't give a crap as to why a triangle was stronger than a square. And he _really_ didn't care how many cubes could fit into Lee's brand new 14.53' by 19.24' box.

Zee had barely been paying attention to any of his classes that day. In fact, the only thing in any classroom that earned his respect was the clock. And as Zee stared intently at the second hand, it seemed as if the clock was going slower, just to spite the class during last period, on the Friday before spring break.

Zee had a different reason for wanting to get out of school. One that only he and his cousin—Charlotte Mielswetski—shared. Sure enough, when the bell rang, the two students literally ran to their lockers, with enough force to knock down a god. Of course, almost all of the students were rushing towards the next two weeks of freedom, and it was hardly unusual for Char and Zee to be part of the craze.

Still, if someone had heard their actual reason for shoving their way to the front of the bottlenecks, taking extreme detours to avoid hall monitors, and disappearing the minute they left the school, Char and Zee would have been locked up in an asylum for sure.

So as luck would have for the young cousins, nobody else **did** know about the mysterious happenings. Well, no, I take that back. Two other people knew what occurred. One of them is a mysterious little creature, an old girl who is very young, indeed. The other is quite similar, but she has no disguise.

You'll learn about this connection later in the story. Or, possibly, very soon indeed. But only time will tell, and time is right now telling us to return to Char and Zee.

Zee cruised down the roads leading away from the school, only looking up twice: once, to apologize to the woman he nearly knocked down while turning a corner; and the second time to look apprehensively around the outside of the cave in front of him, for Char was not yet there, and there was no sign of the other girl.

Panting, Char appeared in the clearing. "S-So-not-FAIR!" she panted, collapsing in front of the cave. "What's not fair?" Zee asked, pretending he didn't know what she was talking about.

By now, Char had regained her breath, and was glaring at her cousin. "You **know **what I'm talking about, Zee! Or, should I say, Mr. 14-year-old-on-a-varsity-soccer-team."

"Y'know, if I wrote that that when I signed my passport, the airport guy would really hate my guts."

"Who's to say you didn't 'infect' his kids? That'd give him a much better reason to hate your guts." Char retorted.

That made Zee really angry. "C'mon, Char, that's not fair. You **know** that it wa-"

Zee was interrupted by giggling. Muffled giggling, no doubt, but a somewhere in the cave, a girl was laughing at him. "Duse?" When no one answered, he rolled his eyes. "We know you're in there."

After a few minutes of coaxing, the girl finally came out of the cave. 'Duse' was wearing a turban that carefully covered her hair, and big black sunglasses. All in all, she looked pretty much the same as the first time Zee and Char had met her, about a month before. A pretty face that didn't deserve to be hidden, Zee knew that much. At least, he **thought**. Duse _could_ be lying.

"Sorry. It just cracks me up, how anytime you two argue, it's about who knows what. But, your time is limited, so let's not talk about fighting. Zeus knows we'll have enough of **that **later on."

Char laughed. "Spot on, Duse. But what if they agree?"

It was Duse's turn to laugh. "'What if they agree?' Gods, Char, you've no idea how naive that sounds to me. I'll give you a break 'cause you're relatively new to all of this. See, the gods won't agree to anything that doesn't somehow benefit Olympus. And since Athena almost always has a pretty huge say of what goes, your vision of agreement is nowhere near possible.

But, maybe, just maybe, we can get one or two gods to help us. If not, we'll resort to plan B. Actually, we'd go to plan B anyway, so . . . Moving on, when plan B doesn't work, we have plan C, open and ready to use at almost any time. _IF_ both of you follow the OTHER plan."

Zee grinned. "Trust me; we'll help with the plan. Especially now that someone else is on our side, not just their own side. Hey, wait a minute-did you say _**when**_ plan B doesn't work?"

Duse blushed. "Well, it's not very likely. We have a much better chance of getting monsters on our side than getting the children of our very enemy."

Char spoke up. "I don't know. If the myths say what you said they say, then won't the demigods we're targeting believe us, too? After all, they're supposed to be the smart ones. And their leader is disobeying their mother as we speak!"

Duse's face darkened. "I still don't think we should trust the half-bloods. Besides, I think the leader was dropped on the head as a baby. I mean, disobeying her domineering mother, I could understand perfectly. But with that IMBECILE of a god's son? How stupid can one get? His father is an ungrateful, disgusting, greedy, good-for-nothing, idi-"

Zee interrupted her. "We get your point. You don't like him. And, under no circumstances, should you ever say what you were going to say after 'idiotic'."

Duse pouted. "Well, it's true!"

Zee glared pointedly. "'True' doesn't matter here. If you insult them, we just waste valuable time, resources, and energy on even making a plan B in the first place."

Char nodded. "Exactly. Oh, Duse, here are the books you wanted. The Iliad, the Odysseus, and those 10 random Greek mythology books you needed for research. The new library isn't open yet, but the old one will have the computers until Wednesday. Go before then, and you can check out the websites. My card number is 285-7340-92105. The pin number is 5-9-84. Remember, my mom is taking us to Canada for the rest of the break on next Friday, so call us any time after Zee's soccer practice tonight. We don't want to end up leaving without meeting again." She rushed out in one sentence, handing Duse a roll of quarters as she spoke.

"Thanks Char!" Duse forced a smile as the cousins left, but once their backs were turned, her face regained the haunted expression, and under her breath, she added: "And may that selfish sea god get what's coming to him."

**(a/n) So, didja like it? Hate it? I don't care what you say as long as you review! (Well, I care a little. But I probably won't show it, so you don't have to worry about hurting my feelings!) Duse is not a Mary Sue, or even an OC. Well, kinda. She's an OC take on a real . . . character . . . Imaginary presents to the first three people who tell who she is. (In a review!)(Tell me what imaginary presents you want, and I'll go to the imaginary superstore and buy them.)**

**-avelinette**

**In your review, feel free to hate on the random kid behind me who keeps hitting my chair! Even though he's probably older than me! And much bigger! And therefore possibly stronger! But, oh well!**

**Putting touch screen TVs in the back of airplane chairs is a terrible idea. Remind me to Google the person who invented them and add them to my hate list.**

**Bye.**

**Wow. I've been on the computer for, like, only 20 minutes, and only 80% of my battery is left. And it's in power saver mode!**

**I'm probably not going to update this story for a while, because this is really more of a prologue, to let you know what's coming.**

**Okay. **

**Bye now.**

**No, really. Bye.**

**See? Nothing else is left.**

**Oh, wait-wait-wait-wait-wait-WAIT!**

**I forget something. **

**Here is a shortened list of what avelinette does not own:**

**PJO**

**Rick Riordan's credit card**

**Cronus Chronicles**

**Anne Ursu's favorite shoes**

**Greek Mythology**

**The letter 'e'**

**A lemon meringue pie**

**A computer faster than your average sea-turtle-on-land**

**Speaking of which, I saw this really scary movie about the journey of a turtle that SO should've been rated PG.**

**Okay. I'm seriously going to stop now.**

**AFTER . . . one more thing:**

**APPLESAUCE!**

**Bye-bye!**

**-ave xx**


	2. Wait, what?

**(a/n) Hi! Please read the note at the bottom, important stuff about updates, etc.**

Chapter 2-WHAT?

Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace, and Nico Di Angelo had been in the lake, the training arena, and the Hades cabin respectively. HAD been. Now, they were all in the big house, having been summoned by Chiron.

"I suppose you're wondering why you have been summoned." Chiron started. Percy, who had been . . . erm . . . _with_ Annabeth, was dripping wet-he had been so surprised that he stopped keeping himself dry and depleted the bubble. "We are? You know, now that I think about, yeah, I AM WONDERING WHY THE HADES YOU DECIDED TO INTERRUPT OUR TRAINING! AND YOU ONLY PULLED _**US**_ AWAY!"

Thalia couldn't help it. "Yeah, Jackson. _Training._ THAT'S what you were doing in the lake with Annabeth. Sure . . . . Besides, I was in the middle of the climbing wall!" she exclaimed, holding out her hands for the whole room to see the burn marks.

Nico glared at his friends. "You think you guys got it bad? **I** was trying to raise an army of skeletons!"

Thalia tilted her head. "Why, pray tell, would you be raising an army of skeletons, di Angelo?"

Nico pouted. "MAYBE I was trying to save man-kind from the apocalypse! We ALL know it's coming." He retorted.

Percy laughed. "You were going to set them on her, weren't you? Now, THAT would've been a fun battle to watch."

Chiron looked around uncomfortably. A definite problem of using children of the big three was the arguing. "Ahem!" When the three children turned to face him, and somehow managed to remain silent, Chiron continued.

"Olympus has received reports of some monsters gathering in ***certain area that cannot be revealed for the safety of the readers***. It shouldn't be too hard to exterminate the groups, but whoever is in charge seems to have an actual plan. Something that's well organized, like something a child of Athena would come up with. And scent-wise, there is nothing above the usual in ***certain area that cannot be revealed for the safety of the readers***."

"It's almost as if the monsters are using humans to do the work. But, unlike when Kronos used the humans, there are no reports of mortals acting strangely! Then again, it is spring break, so most kids are acting strangely, and there really is no way to draw the line. Anyway, Apollo said that he wanted the heroes for this quest to visit him at his winter house in Canada before they go on the quest."

"You three have been exposed to Apollo's . . . erm . . . wonderful poetry, and you can fight whatever comes your way. Besides, if it is what we think it is, we'll need all the help we can get. Having children of the big three can't hurt our chances."

"That's everything you guys need to know. Go off to your cabins, tell your friends about it, pack, and prepare whatever you need."

Just as the three friends were about to leave, Chiron said one more thing. "Percy! Be careful. Don't use your powers unless it's absolutely necessary. Water abilities will not be taken well!"

Percy, more confused than ever, frowned. "What about Thalia and Nico? Wouldn't lightning and bring-back-the-dead abilities also be bad? And, besides, why haven't we gone to Rachel for a prophecy?"

Chiron coughed uncomfortably. "I am sorry, but you know the rules about having interference during a quest. And, as for the prophecy, I believe that either Apollo will choose to give you onewhen you visit, or you simply must make it up as you go along."

As the trio left, Dionysus, who had been cooperatively quiet throughout the meeting, laughed, almost giddily.

"Oh, I'm going to have so much fun at Peter Johnson's funeral! What wine do you think we should serve? What should the decorations be? I, for one, think we should decorate his shroud with snakes. Live ones, of course."

Chiron glared at the god, but he couldn't stop the nagging suspicion deep inside of him that, despite the jibe, Dionysus could be right. Maybe he was sending three kids to certain death.

Chiron wished he could've sent a child of Athena. Annabeth, along with Thalia and Percy would've been a wonderful combination. But another feeling had risen from his gut, promising him that Athena AND Poseidon would only aggravate their opponents even more.

He looked down at the notes in front of him. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all he had. Two demigods (parents unknown) had suddenly disappeared. The satyr at their school had been questioned, but was entirely clueless as to their whereabouts. Chances were that the children had been taken hostage by the monster in the area.

Sending Percy still bothered Chiron-but it was the only way. On her own, Thalia couldn't be trusted to make the right decision, but only Thalia had just the right mix of ruthlessness and pity. Watching out for Nico would force her to be more careful. Sending Percy along would balance out the other two. No other arrangement could work.

Chiron just had to hope that it would all work out. Oh, and that Percy wasn't dismembered, torn to shreds, burned, and have his ashes disposed of in a toilet/dumpster. Or something.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

***in an un-specified coffee shop somewhere near Minneapolis* **

***by near, I mean somewhere in Hennepin County***

***that's in Minnesota***

Duse waited impatiently for her guest to arrive. Well, guest was a bit of an overstatement. More like . . . a visiting informant. However, this visitor was quite a bit late, and Duse was getting more and more uncomfortable around the strangers surrounding her in the crowded shop.

The door swung open again, and this time the very person Duse was waiting for walked through. Duse calmly waved her over, and the two practically faded into the background of the shop.

"Steph!" Duse hissed at the visitor. "There is barely enough mist in here as it is, and it is not helping at all that you have _no_ disguise! What, may I ask, it going through your head?"

Steph harrumphed. "Good to see you, too, sis. How's the family? _Fine_, thanks for asking. Oh no, of course I don't want a coffee, or a bagel, or a donut, or a-"

"I am _trying_ to be serious here. None of us want to start a war, but we need to take it seriously not that we must. We may very well never get this chance again, sister. Do you really want to be the one that is responsible for, as they say nowadays, _blowing it_?"

"I'll have you know, I have been very _responsible _and _serious_ about this whole thing! And, by the way, you should _not_ be using that tone with your oldest sister! Anyway, if you are done _insulting_ me, I'll tell you exactly what I've been learning.

"They plan to send three campers north, to Canada. Something about Apollo, blah blah, poetry, blah, children of the big three, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, my _point_ is that three experienced campers are going to be in Saint-Lin-Laurentides, prepped to kill us by Monday. It's Friday night. You do the math."

Duse frowned, concentrating. "That is . . . unexpected. I knew that they would head towards Canada, but on Monday? This could set us back dangerously. Char and Zee go to Canada next Friday, and until then I was going to patch relations with a few gods, but _now_ . . ." Duse simply shook her head.

"Don't worry. Apollo has said he will back us that he will help and come to our aid if war arises — which it surely will. Why do you think he requested that the half-bloods come to him for the prophecy?"

"What exactly does Apollo mean when he says _help_?"

"I . . . I, uh . . . errr . . . I . . . Look, I have no idea. No one does. Just get over it, sweetie. Not everyone you meet is going to hurt you. Sometimes you just have to go out on limb and trust someone, okay?"

Steph looked at Duse, as if daring her to say something else to counter her.

"Come on, Duse. Do you really think we stand a chance without him? Apollo is a powerful god. Having him on our side could make a big difference. Maybe even the difference between winning and losing. Is that really a risk _you_ want to take?"

Duse stared at her sister and swallowed painfully.

"I do hate it when you you my own words against me, Stheno."

Steph smiled grimly. "Then we have a deal. You figure out how to get Char and Zee to Apollo before the half-bloods, and I shall do some rooting around. See if I can find some gods that have been swaying their loyalties, some that might be very happy to help our cause."

"I don't remember making this agreement?"

"You just did, Duse. Eury and I were wronged, too. You forget that sometimes." Steph said softly. "You are our baby sister. We will _always_ be looking out for you."

And with that, Stheno, the oldest Gorgon, left Starbucks.

**(a/n) So, it still feels weird writing author's notes when I don't have any readers yet, but oh well. I'll just talk to the cyberspace monkeys or something.**

**Hello there, monkeys! Have you been enjoying my story? Yes? No? Well, anyway, here's what I'm thinking with updates and all that:**

**I'm going to try to post every Saturday, if I'm a little late (like today), bear with me. I'll be writing as much of this story as I can between now and the start of school, but I only have a month to do it, so . . . yeah. If I get the story finished, between now and then (which would be awesome, but I doubt it), then I'm going to speed up the update schedule. Maybe do twice a week, every 3 or every 2 days, I'll figure something out. **

**Oh, and FYI, Hennepin County was not a random choice, and I didn't pick it because I live there or anything. Never been to Minnesota in my life. In the Cronus Chronicles, Anne states that Char lives near the largest (by number of shops) shopping mall in the U.S. . . which is in Minneapolis . . . so . . . yeah . . .**

**Just so I know if anyone is actually reading this: Please, please, please review. I don't care what you say. In fact, if you can't decide what to say, just write "Hi! I read your story." Or something. You get the gist of it.**

**Thank you for reading, cyberspace monkeys! **

**-ave**


	3. Race To Light

Chapter 3 – Race to Light

**(a/n) Sorry this is so late, my family decided to go for an impromptu six hour drive, spend one night at my grandparents house, and then drive back, and then go shopping at 8 pm. **

**Why do I write chappie? It's the same length as chapter . . .**

Zee blinked at Char. "You . . .you can't be serious. We can NOT go up to Canada on our own!"

Char raised her eyebrows. "I thought I was the scaredy-cat. Anyways, it doesn't matter if we can't, we HAVE to! Duse says they're sending people up, and we've got to get there before THEY do. "

"I've gotten that much—but I still don't think we should go." Zee said; worry etched into his face. "Wait a minute! How did Duse know they were coming? She hasn't been . . ."

Char shook her head. "No, she'd never go down to Long Island herself—way too dangerous. One of her sisters is stationed in the camp as a spy."

Zee nodded with an air of resignation. "Say we were to go to Canada tomorrow night, as you suggest. How, exactly, do you plan on _getting_ there? What would we do?"

Char turned to look Zee directly in the eye. "You're not going to like this. Truth is, neither do I. But we have to get to Apollo before the demigods! We'll take some money from my parents, take a plane or something to Saint-Lin-Laurentides, find Apollo, ask him for help in swaying the demigods, and do some improv from there. We'll leave a note to my parents that we just couldn't wait to learn about historical stuff, or whatever it was that made two history teachers want to go to Canada. 'Kay?"

Zee gulped. He didn't like lying, being evasive, sneaking around, etc. But Char was right. This was their only hope. Absolutely gutted, he gave in. "Fine. We'll leave tomorrow, in the middle of the night, like you said. Duse is meeting us there, right?"

"No, she's leaving us all on our own in a strange country where people don't understand the value of bacon and have detached heads. OF COURSE, she's meeting us there!"

"Okay, got it! No need to be such a prat about it."

"Did you just call me a prat?"

"Yeah, actually. Yeah, I did." Zee challenged, as if daring her to question him.

Ignoring his tone, Char continued. "What does that even mean? Is this another one of your weird-British-things? Can't you just speak English? I mean, really, how hard can it be?"

Zee rolled his eyes, not even bothering to explain how technically _she_ was speaking incorrectly, if anyone was.

**/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/**

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Thalia, Nico, and Percy were planning for their quest.

"I still think there's something he's not telling us." Nico was saying to Percy, as Thalia fumed on her own.

"I can't believe it! I am a hunter of Artemis, not just some stupid camper with nothing else to do! The nerve them! Going behind my back, talking to each other, and coming up with a deal as if I'm a book they both want to check out from the library! They can't just discuss my life and come up with plans for me! You guys agree that this is unfair, right?"

"Yes, Thalia," the boys meekly replied, both terrified of what Thalia would do to them if they disagreed with her.

Thalia glared at them, knowing full well they weren't listening, and continued to rant as the boys tuned her out.

Percy turned back to Nico. "Yeah, but why wouldn't he tell us? I mean, if it's something that important, he wouldn't let us go without knowing it, would he? It's probably nothing."

Nico frowned. "Well, yeah, you're probably right. But . . . I don't know, he just seemed kind of worried. And well, 'Hey, there are a bunch of monsters in this area, go kill them,' doesn't really sound like your typical quest, now does it?"

"Well, no, I guess not. Still, this is Chiron we're talking about. For all we know, he's worried about the centaur family reunion. Besides, there's probably a bit more to it than just 'Hey, go kill these monsters.' You'll see, when we meet up with Apollo, there'll be something else. He'll explain it."

Nico snorted. "Riiiiiiiiiight, because Apollo is so great at explaining things and making them clear."

The sky thundered, loud enough to drown out whatever it was that Nico said next.

Nico winced. "Sorry?"

Thalia by now had finished her rant. "What are you two idiots talking about now? It's bad enough that I'm stuck with you two retards, now I have to watch you talk behind my back, as well!"

"Thalia, if you were even listening to us, you would know what we were talking about." Percy reminded her.

Thalia glared at him, but allowed him to continue.

"Nico thinks there's something Chiron's not telling us. I think he's overreacting. Since it's so important that we include you, what's your say on the matter?"

"Whoah, slow down Jackson! There were some pretty big words in there. I counted up to five syllables! Have you been reading the dictionary again?"

"Shut up, airhead."

"Coming from _you_, that's actually almost an insult. Of _course_ there's something Chiron isn't telling us! He practically said it himself, you dimwits! But seeing as he hasn't told us by now, he's probably not going to, so we're just gonna have to deal without that particular bit of knowledge—something you and di Angelo should be be good at for a change."

"Hah!" Nico triumphantly exclaimed. "Told you I was right about Chir—wait, what? Not cool, Thalia. Not cool."

**(a/n) I'm so sorry for this chapter being ridiculously short, and completely pointless but the next chapter needed to be separate from this, so there was really nothing I could do. Sorry again, I'm going to try to get longer chapters in.**

**-ave**


End file.
